


picture perfect

by gly13



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguity, Established Relationship, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Open to Interpretation, fluff technically, no one actually dies in the fic, only as sad as you choose it to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29581353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gly13/pseuds/gly13
Summary: Taeyong’s secret looks him in the eyes the way it always has. Lovingly.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38
Collections: Challenge #5 — I heard a secret..





	picture perfect

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this fic could be quite sad depending on how you read it but it might also just be quite cute so please consider this your warning! 
> 
> this has been written for alwr5: secrets! so huge huge huge thank you to the mods for all their hard work!! <33333
> 
> hope u enjoy !!

“I have a secret.”

It’s slurred. Hushed and joyful because Taeyong is taking great delight in the liberties of being drunk. He giggles but it breaks off into a hiccup halfway through. That makes him giggle more.

Doyoung pulls the covers up to Taeyong’s chin with a placating smile. He’s perched on the edge of the bed, on the more fun side of tipsy.

“Is that so?” He hums.

“Yup!” Taeyong would nod his head if the movement didn’t threaten to send the room spinning and he quite likes it as it is now: deep blue, car lights from the street below flickering against the ceiling. “But I can’t tell you what it is.” He thinks he might sound proud.

“Well, it wouldn’t be much of a secret if you did, would it?”

“You get it, Doie.” It’s quiet for a moment as Taeyong stretches his jaw in a yawn.

“You gonna be alright if I leave now?”

Jaehyun watches on from where he’s stood in the arch of the doorway. Yellow light from the corridor spilling out around his edges.

Taeyong finds Jaehyun’s eyes, picks them out from the indigo haze of night. His hand burns.

“Yes,” he tells him.

Jaehyun’s dimples are showing, and he’s smiling so fondly.

He looks so much like that photo of him on the dresser.

**___**

Jaehyun is next to him when he wakes up, the same way he always is.

Pastel sunlight pushes its way through the net curtains, gets trapped in the dark of Jaehyun’s eyes. It’s a warm, murky yellow in the room, swallowing the pale sheets and bathing Taeyong’s bare feet in fuzzy warmth where they’re sticking out from under the covers.

Taeyong, front pressed into the mattress, turns his head to find Jaehyun already looking at him. His hair glows golden at the ends, fraying out like willow tree branches onto the pillow. There’s a gap of white linen between his hair and Taeyong’s own.

It’s too far.

“Afternoon, beautiful,” Jaehyun says.

And it’s soft in the same way a lullaby is. Tender in a way that makes Taeyong feel guilty.

Jaehyun smiles, and the gleam of day shifts to float around the happy crinkles that form on his face. He looks like he belongs there, like he’s part of the scenery: a work of art blended expertly into his surroundings. He looks unreal.

Taeyong turns his head again so that it’s face-down on the pillow. It’s dark like this and a little hard to breathe, but it’s worse looking at Jaehyun.

He hears Jaehyun laugh softly and maybe even feels him run a hand through Taeyong’s hair.

“My head hurts,” Taeyong whines as an excuse. It’s muffled but Jaehyun will understand him.

Jaehyun hums in a way that is equal parts sympathetic and apathetic. “That tends to happen when you drink your weight in vodka, love.”

“I was celebrating.”

“Pre-emptively?”

Taeyong doesn’t reply because Jaehyun knows the answer and his head hurts.

**___**

“Coffee?” Taeyong asks, proffering up a mug.

He laughs at the unimpressed look on Jaehyun’s face.

“Right,” he says. “Sorry, I forgot. It’s easy to do that sometimes.”

**___**

Taeyong laughs and clings to Johnny for support as his howls threaten to choke him.

Johnny seems surprised at the glee on Taeyong’s face, as does everyone else at the table. Granted, it might not have been that funny. Taeyong feels like he’s been looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses recently, feels like he’s always a little dizzy.

The coffee shop is busy and the air is light in Taeyong’s lungs despite the overlapping layers of conversation that fill it. They’ve pushed two tables together next to the window the same way they always do, and even with one less person, still their chair legs overlap, still Taeyong sits with his feet pulled up onto his seat. It’s familiar in a lovely and painful way.

Taeyong takes a moment to admire the way sunlight refracts into rainbow ripples in a puddle left behind by the earlier rain on the pavement. The glass of the window is unclean. Cloudy, it paints the outside world in a pale mist, washing out the lives of these people Taeyong will never meet into the background, settling over the bustle of an afternoon in the city like a dream to be forgotten once awoken.

He tunes back into the conversation. Yuta is telling a story but Taeyong is sure he’s heard it before. He follows along best he can, though it’s hard to stop his mind from straying the same way it’s hard to pin even the most relaxed wave to the shore.

His friends won’t mind. They’ve been all sorts of lenient with him lately. Sometimes it’s stifling. Today he’s thankful.

There’s a cluster of silver bells hanging above the entrance that sing in dainty anti-harmony as the door is pushed open.

Taeyong’s head snaps up on reflex, but everyone else seems occupied with whatever Yuta is saying so no one else sees Jaehyun stroll in, that same smile he always wears on his face. Taeyong feels one grow on his own to match it and Ten fixes him with a look but Taeyong ignores it.

The world is softer at the edges, and everything is dusted in pink.

**___**

“Are you going to tell anyone?” Jaehyun asks. His face is easily readable, encouraging and delicate. He’s always wanted what’s best for Taeyong. It’s not his fault Taeyong disagrees about what that is.

“I'll take it to the grave,” Taeyong says. Determined. He means it.

“You won't have to go very far, then,” Jaehyun says and it’s halfway between a sigh and a joke.

Taeyong laughs.

**___**

“Do you remember this?”

Taeyong shows his phone to Jaehyun, and watches as a smile twists itself into his lips. Snapchat memories has taken a year ago today and broadcasted it.

A photo of him and Jaehyun draped in pixelated neon lighting and heavy purple shadows. Jaehyun’s wearing the same black t-shirt in the photo as he is right now. In the picture, they’re pressed tight, Taeyong fitting into the space under Jaehyun’s arm, the lines of their bodies matching up.

“If you remember it, so do I, baby,” Jaehyun says kindly and Taeyong feels stupid. 

**___**

The surface of the lake is white under the solid beams from the sun. Liquid lightning, stretching out in haphazard zigzags. Like someone has drawn them on with a marker, messy and chaotic and natural all the same.

Taeyong’s stone flies from his hand and skips once, twice, thrice, four times before it sinks. And in its wake it leaves a trail of clashing ripples. And sky blue fights ghostly white.

Taeyong turns to where Jaehyun is sat on a rock with an expression that is equal parts proud and endeared. It’s a face Taeyong knows well, one he thinks he could draw in his sleep.

“Did you see that?” Taeyong shouts, out of excitement more than anything. Jaehyun will hear him no matter what.

“You’re getting better,” Jaehyun smiles and Taeyong beams.

“All thanks to you,” Taeyong says.

“Obviously,” Jaehyun fake scoffs.

“I’ll be better than you soon.”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes and Taeyong can tell he’s biting back his competitive spirit when he says, “that’s hardly fair, don’t you think?”

It’s light-hearted but the reminder makes Taeyong’s heart drop like one of his stones. He can see Jaehyun’s expression morph and his mouth open but gets there before him.

“All’s fair in love and war, Jae,” he says.

Jaehyun raises an eyebrow. “And which one’s this?”

Taeyong laughs and it feels so free bounding around the empty lake. “Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

**___**

His friends are treading on eggshells around him and he’s not sure why. He thinks Jaehyun might know, but he doesn’t want to ask.

There are bunches of roses in every shop window, and the sheer amount of red and pink plastered everywhere is enough to be sickening. Taeyong can’t find it in himself to care, though.

“Happy birthday, Jaehyunnie,” he whispers into the cold morning February air.

His phone is buzzing, lighting up with messages but he ignores them.

Taeyong looks into Jaehyun’s eyes and refuses to see anything else.

**___**

“Don’t look in my sock drawer,” Jaehyun says almost absent-mindedly before Taeyong is drifting off.

**___**

“It’s not healthy,” Jaehyun says. And he’s not wrong but Taeyong hates it all the same.

Taeyong continues to ignore him, keeping his hands busy scrubbing at an already clean plate. Jaehyun knows what he’s doing; there’s no hiding. Jaehyun allows him willful ignorance most of the time, but not tonight.

Taeyong doesn’t know what’s different tonight, only that something is.

The light in the kitchen is harsh, not at all softened like it usually is. And Taeyong can feel it pressing like a nail into the side of his skull, aching and piercing. Maybe it’s been there for a while now, and he’s only just realising it.

The light is harsh but Jaehyun’s gaze is as gentle as ever. It hurts like someone has stolen the wind from beneath his wings and he can’t tell if he’s falling or flying.

“You need to tell someone or you need to let go.”

Taeyong doesn’t even consider the first option; Jaehyun should know better. “I’m not really one to let go.”

“I know.” It’s the closest to resigned Jaehyun has probably ever been with him.

“Neither are you.” If it’s a little vindictive, Taeyong knows Jaehyun won’t love him any less.

Jaehyun looks Taeyong right in the eyes and it sends a shiver down his spine. “I know.”

**___**

They sit side by side, not quite touching.

The picture on the dresser mocks him, and Taeyong doesn’t dare turn his head to look at Jaehyun, afraid he’ll see the picture there, too.

When Jaehyun’s hand covers Taeyong’s own, their fingers interlinking in that casual intimate way that comes with years of loving familiarity, Taeyong can’t feel it.

He doesn’t think it’s strange. He hasn’t been feeling much of anything lately.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! if you enjoyed please leave kudos and comments they mean so much! and i'd love to hear your thoughts and interpretations of this!!
> 
> big thank you to the mods once again!
> 
> p.s. if u catch what the sock drawer line means u rock <3 (i'll give u a hint: jaehyun might have had a secret of his own heh)
> 
> talk to me about your thoughts on [twt](https://twitter.com/whatisanult) or [cc](https://curiouscat.me/whatisanult)


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